Once you have identified the stakeholders, it is time to learn from them. Who do you need to observe and consult? This next phase sends your team out into the community to interview, observe, pretend and experience how people interact and engage.
Often, I think a blind spot of many churches and ministries is an unconscious blame toward the people outside the church. There is an internal assumption that outsiders are the cause of their own inability to connect. Tom Kelley explains this is not specific to only to churches and ministries, but that it is a common challenge for the business world as well.
“The annals of business are chock-full of executives who didn’t understand why people couldn’t use their products correctly.”
Tom Kelley
This is a profound statement. Do we blame people for not being able to engage our church and ministry correctly? Is this blame properly placed? Or should we pause and explore what we are missing and not understanding? There needs to be a humility to explore how the church could be misunderstanding those outside the church and possibly causing roadblocks to engagement.
Learning from the stakeholders can take many forms. Sometimes it is important to talk to people and ask lots of questions, sometimes we need to observe, sometimes we need to pretend we are the stakeholder we hope to engage with and walk in their shoes. Kelley encourages us to do all of these things.
“Focused observation can be a powerful source of innovation…. Good, insightful observation combines careful watching with occasional well-chosen ‘why?’ questions to get at the underlying psychology of a person’s interactions with products and serves.”
Tom Kelley
An important thing to keep in mind in this process is to be open to what is discovered. Once your team spends sometime in the learning mode, you will come back together and share all you observed. The sharing needs to be done without judgment and without planning. The team needs to listen to each other and learn what they learned.
Once everyone has shared their observations, your innovation community outreach question will become more clear and the brainstorming and planning can begin.
KATHY PIERBURG 